Wilders Targets Turkey as Dutch Support Slides Week Before Vote

EghtesadOnline: Dutch Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders is firing up his anti-Muslim base as he seeks to regain support one week out from elections in the Netherlands.

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08 March 2017

The anti-Islam leader, who lives under constant police protection for his radical immigration views, will lead a protest at the Turkish embassy on Wednesday to oppose rallies backed by the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkey and the EU waged a war of words this week, culminating with the suggestion by Erdogan that Germany was stuck in the Nazi era. The dispute allows Wilders to tap into the populist angst at the core of his party’s philosophy just as polls suggest his support is waning. Seven days out from the March 15 election, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte claimed top spot in an aggregate of polls for the first time this year, according to Bloomberg.

“No Turkish minister campaigning in the Netherlands!” Wilders wrote on Twitter on Monday ahead of an Ankara-backed rally for expatriate voters in the run-up to a planned April referendum in Turkey.

Dutch Bellwether

The Dutch vote will be watched as a bellwether for broader trends in Europe before France and Germany, two other founding EU members, hold elections this year amid a groundswell of nationalist support.

The Freedom Party will gain 24 seats in the election, compared with 25 for Rutte’s Liberals, according to an aggregate of the latest polls. In the middle of January, Wilders’s group was expected to gain 33 seats, compared with 24 for Rutte’s.

With 28 parties on the ballot, it could take an alliance between several different groups to form a government. And since most of the mainstream parties have ruled out cooperating with Wilders, it’s doubtful that the Freedom Party will get a ruling slot.

It’s “unlikely that a single party will obtain a majority –- hence, a coalition is inevitable,” Credit Suisse analysts led by Anais Boussie wrote in a note. “Given the fragmented nature of this election round, we expect a coalition of at least four or five parties.”

EU-Turkey Rift

Erdogan said on Sunday that the EU’s largest economy was using Nazi-like practices after two German municipalities canceled campaign events by two of his cabinet ministers. The rallies precede a referendum that would transform the Turkish presidency into the nation’s top executive post.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel responded that such language “can’t be justified” under any circumstances and foreign politicians can campaign in Germany within the law.